Retiree Happily Bankrupts Himself For Nigerian Spammer

from the incredible dept

gluefreak writes in with quite a story about a retiree who fell for a typical 419 Nigerian scam, basically giving up everything he had. He sold all his stock, mortgaged his house, sold two cars, signed up for 25 credit cards, and gave whatever else he had to the scammers. However, that's not the most incredible part. After all of this, and after he's been told about how this is a very typical scam, he still insists he wasn't conned. He believes that his "associates" in Africa have been nothing but honest with him, and it's corrupt government officials who are keeping his money from him. Part of this might just be a defensive response to keep himself from admitting that he's fallen for quite an old con. I'm still shocked that anyone could still fall for such a scam - to the point of giving away about a quarter of a million dollars to people you don't even know. On a lighter note, though, this gives me another chance to link to the Outside the Inbox music compilation inspired by spam, including the brilliant song about 419 scams, Urgent Business Relationships by MC Frontalot.